Cost of Discipleship - Part 8

Jessop was the pastor. He came to England and preached. I remember him saying his sister had a beautiful little girl, just a model little girl, and she was pretty spoiled, and she always had pretty clothes, and she had a pretty good mind, and she knew a poem with about 12 stanzas.

And the relatives were coming to dinner, and mother said, now darling, I bought you a new dress, and after dinner I'm going to stand you on that chair, and you're going to say your poem. Yes, mummy. And when dinner was over, mother said, I want you to hear now what Peggy's learned.

She has learned such a lovely poem. It's got about 10 lines, and each stanza, there are 12 stanzas, and my little daughter, four, is going to recite it for you. Come on, darling.

She stood on the chair, and little Peggy stood up and went. But mother said, Peggy, say your piece. Peggy, say your piece.

If you don't, you're going upstairs. Peggy again. Mother took her upstairs, and put her in a big old cupboard they had, and put the latch on.

And sure enough, she got so lost in the party, she forgot Peggy was up there. Oh, Peggy's upstairs. Poor little mate.

When she got up there, she heard a noise. This is funny. She opened the door, there was Peggy, and she said, are you going to say your piece? She said, no.

What were you doing just now? She had a nice little list. She said, spitting. I spit on your dress, I spit on your fur, I spit on your shoes, and I'm just waiting for more spit.

In other words, she'd made up her mind, she wasn't going to do as mummy said. Now, let's break this down for a minute. He says, you're babes, and he diagnoses the trouble.

He says there is among you envy, and pride, and division. And the scripture says envy is as rottenness of the bones. You say, well, I've been in trouble with pride, I know even more since I was sick.

I've been in trouble with bad temper, I've been in trouble with envy, I've been in trouble with doubt. Come on. What are you going to do with it? I've asked the Lord to help me.

Well, he won't help you. Why not? Because he says he won't. Look, he won't help you to control it.

God never excuses sin, what he does is execute it. He says, take it to the cross, that's the thing. Many of us, like the old lady, she had a dog, a very, very nice dog, a pedigree dog.

Had a long, long tail, it should have been cut off. Somebody asked her, did she have papers for the dog? She said, yes, all over the floor. The dog, you see, this dog should have no tail, it needs its tail cutting off right up to the rump there.

Oh, I didn't know that. The man went a few months after, the dog had half a tail. She said, you've done it wrong, you should have cut it right up to its rump.

No, she said, that's cruel, I cut two inches off every month. Well, that's what some of us try to do. You know, I don't think I'll be as carnal next year as I've been this year.

I don't think I'll be as, you know, as touchy. I think I'll grow up next year. I don't think my temper will be as bad.

I don't think I'll be as critical. I don't think I'll be as unkind. I don't think I'll be, you know, so feeble in my prayer life.

I don't think I'll be so self-centered. Again, read Romans 7, it's self-centered, 19 times, I, I, I, go into, go through the same chapter and count how many times the Holy Spirit is mentioned. He's not mentioned once, why? Because it's a self-centered life.

And you go into Romans chapter 8, the victorious life. Romans 7 is a funeral march, Romans 8 is a wedding march. Romans 8, 7 is bondage.

Romans 8, Paul's singing, out of my bondage, sorrow and night, Jesus I come. Romans then 7, 31 times, I, I, I. Romans 8, I only twice, when he says I reckon and I am persuaded. But 19 times the Holy Spirit is mentioned, because it's a spirit-dominated life in chapter 8. Almost the last thing to say here, let me read a verse, again from Galatians, Galatians 4, if you look at it a minute, and, and verse 1. This, this is the most devastating thing of all, I think, on this level of spiritual infancy.

Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth not from a servant. You notice that? Here is a man, or a boy, say he's 13, 14 years of age, his daddy's let him a thousand acres, a nice little lear, lear jet, a lovely yacht, ten million dollars in money. I'm here, that boy at 15 is as helpless as the servant that's cleaning the stables.

Why? He's an heir. His mother can prove she bore the child to the man that died recently. His relatives can testify.

He also has a birth certificate, but he's not a bit of good. The heir, as long as he is a child, differeth not from a servant, though he be lord of everything. But he's under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.

Do you remember some of those awesome words Jesus said to the disciples? I've many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them. I say, Reverend, the Almighty God, don't say that to me at the judgment seat. Don't let me stand before John Wesley and Finney and all the great saints of the ages and say, Raven, I've many things to tell you, you're so preoccupied with this, so preoccupied, I couldn't get through to you.

And if I could, you weren't mature enough to handle it. Isn't it easy to spit texts out, if you'll forgive that rough word. Isn't it easy to say, you know, in this generation, we're going to fulfill the word of Jesus, where he said, greater things than these shall ye do.

Boy, I'd like to see us start with some of the lesser things right now. I'd like to see a bunch of men go and say, I'm going to stay in, say, somewhere like, well, if you like, nearby Dallas. Oh, it's teeming with Bible students and what have you got.

But going to a city like Finney did and say, I'm not moving out of this city until there are two moves, until God moves and the devil gets out of the place. We don't have any body like that. We're fly by night.

We want our big love offerings. We want glamour. Paul never glamorized the gospel.

It's a pretty gory gospel. It's a bloody gospel. It's a sacrificial gospel.

I believe the cardinal ethic of Christianity is sacrifice, not success, sacrifice. Five minutes inside eternity, I believe every one of us will have wished that we'd sacrifice more, prayed more, loved more, sweated more, grieved more, wept more. Notice, will you, that after the acts of the apostles, I'm going to finish quickly, after the acts of the apostles, the whole balance of the New Testament is to the church, it's not to sinners.

Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica and says, I'm praying night and day. No, no, no. He says, I'm praying exceedingly.

He's praying the effectual servant prayer of the righteous man for the church. Yes, for the church. Not that they'll get out of poverty, not that they'll get out of slavery.

He's praying what? He says, I'm praying night and day. What? He's praying for their faith.